Communicative and emotional indicators of professional identity in future doctors

Aim. Professional identity in modern psychological and pedagogical studies is connected with the issues of professional self-determination, personality development, and self-actualization and reflected in the maturity of professional self-identification. Identifying oneself with other people in intercultural communication is a dynamic characteristic of professional identity. A positive professional identity is provided by the confidence in the choice made and respect for profession in society. The purpose of this article is to reveal the communicative and emotional indicators of professional identity in future doctors, which are formed during their study in medical universities. Materials and methods. Communicative and emotional indicators reflect the professional qualities of a doctor directly connected with communication and the ability to control emotions in a dialog between a patient and doctor. Such indicators include objective, standardized, and constructive communication procedure, the ability to control one’s emotions and the emotions of other people. The article provides the data of the empirical study of communicative and emotional indicators obtained with the following methods: “The assessment of the correlation between ‘I am an ideal doctor’ and ‘I am a real doctor’”, “Hall’s EQ emotional intelligence test”. Fifty students from the medical university aged from 19 to 22 years participated in the study. Statistical processing of the data obtained was performed by means of cluster and correlation analysis (Spearman correlation analysis) with the SPSS Statistics 17.0 software. Results. The analysis of empirical data about the correlations between the indicators was performed, the main stages of their formation during the study in medical universities were described. Conclusion. The communicative and emotional indicators of professional identity in future doctors are formed during their study in medical universities. The correlations between a standardized communication procedure, the control of one’s emotions and the emotions of other people are genetically primary. These conclusions allow us to describe the main stages of psychological and pedagogical provision of professional identity in future doctors: the first stage is connected with acquiring the rules of professional etiquette, speech culture and techniques, the methods of nonverbal communication and listening to patients; the second stage deals with the ability to control one’s emotions and to be objective; the third stage contributes to problem-solving skills in a form of role and business games aimed at the development of emotional and communicative qualities.